Commonly found on detective/mystery series; a frequent (but not exclusive) use of this is when the detectives make a pithy 'Gallows Humour' comment about the crime of the week in the Cold Open, followed by a cut to the credits. The usual purpose is to convey a sense that the detective has seen this level of horror before, and that he's so used to it he can make a joke about it. Often will include a Glasses Pull for emphasis.

Done again in episode 36 when a burglar uses previously-unknown psychic powers to temporarily knock out a police force. A police officer does a glasses pull and subtly hints that he'll be facing a lot of charges when he's captured. Bonus points for the officer in question being named after the former Trope Namer.

"It would seem," Ehren said, "that someone doesn't want you making this trip." "Then someone," Tavi replied, "is going to be very disappointed."

In Gregory McDonald's novel, Flynn, Inspector Flynn finds a severed hand on his front porch the morning after a plane exploded over Boston Harbor. He says "Pull yourself together, Charlie," and muses about the dark humour professionals use to deal with such sights.

Live-Action TV

CSI: Miami regularly uses Quip To Black. Caruso's delivery and his frequent Glasses Pull tends to make this moment hilariously Narmy. The device is used less frequently of late. The Glasses Pull followed by a sample from The Who ("YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!") is imitated frequently. Especially on this very page.

Frank: "The suspect was identified by an eyewitness as one Rick Astley and was seen leaving the scene of the crime with the missing Pixar movies." Horatio: "Well Frank, he may have Toy Story and Monsters, Inc., * Puts on Sunglasses* But I'll never give him UP." YEEEAAAAAAAAH!

What makes this so Narmy as compared to Grissom's, has as much to do with Caruso's shades and deadpan delivery, as it does with the start of the theme music serving as almost a sort of laugh track or "Applause" light. On the other hand, when Grissom did it, he delivered it in a "I feel your pain" kind of way.

Parodied often and hard on The Soup, also, with David Caruso even winning a soup award and recording an acceptance speech.

A CSI-themed episode of MythBusters naturally parodies this as well, complete with Who sample. Only it cut to the next narrative segment instead of commercial.

Parodied on Saturday Night Live with CSI: Sarasota featuring an elderly pair of detectives. Each of Betty White's lines is a one-liner accompanied by removing her sunglasses and YYEEEAAAHHHH!!!!!

Unfortunately, what most people don't realize is that this is a case of Beam Me Up, Scotty!; most of Caine's one liners aren't actually quips, simply straightforward observations about the case made in a ridiculously deadpan manner. Only rarely do they fit the spirit of this trope of being ironic or punny.

CSI is a famous example. Gil Grissom has these so frequently that he used to be the Trope Namer.

A self-parody appears in the episode "Fight Night": Grissom delivered the usual quip and the credit music started... then his cell phone rang, the credit music reversed, and the teaser went on for about two more minutes before the real credits started.

In the season 7 episode of CSI "Meet Market" is an example of what might be called LampshadedSubversion. With Grissom on sabbatical it is left to someone else to pick up the slack.

As Phillips and Keppler wheel out this week's corpse...Stokes: Hey. You know what Grissom would say here, don't you? Phillips: Something ironic, I'm sure. ...but we do not cut at this point. Instead we move to the autopsy where Robbins and Keppler discover that there are several foreign objects inserted into the body. After removing and opening an umbrella which covers Robbins in blood...Keppler: That's bad luck, isn't it?

In the episode "Iced" the trope was subverted as a gag. Upon finding a college couple dead in a dorm room, Grissom gets his usual comment in, before Greg Sanders, The Lab Rat, ruins the moment, leaving Grissom to leave on a less poignant note.

Grissom: 'For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo'

Greg: Found a condom!

Grissom: So much for safe sex.

A subversion: in the episode "Grissom's Divine Comedy", the leader ends with a shot of a very ill Gil Grissom at home, making himself chicken soup and coughing into his handkerchief. When his cell phone rings, calling him in to handle a case, Grissom says nothing... he just sighs in frustration. Roll credits.

Lampshade Hung and subverted in "Two and a Half Dead". After finding a dead comedy actress with a rubber chicken stuffed in her mouth (it's a long, complex and hilarious story), the lab techs ask Grissom why he hasn't done a One-Liner, suggesting "I suspect fowl play" and "This is poultry evidence". Grissom goes for neither, instead invoking Incredibly Lame Pun with "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard".

The Quip To Black was somewhat Lampshade Hung in the episode "Crow's Feet", when Catherine Willows, who had reported to the scene and therefore got the chance to quip, stated "it's my turn now" before the credits rolled.

In another episode, the characters are all being filmed in a cops-esque derivative. Grissom delivers his one liner, and there's a pause, and then the producers ask him to repeat it because they didn't catch it. Roll commercials.

In "A Space Oddity", Hodges and Simms are at a sci-fi convention when a corpse is found. Hodges calls up Captain Brass, flips open his phone communicator-style, and says "He's dead, Jim".

Parodied in the episode "Field Mice". Hodges is recounting the story of an old murder case to two rookie CSIs, challenging them to solve it. On two occasions Hodges' story appears to end with a Quip To Black, complete with the intro music starting to fade in...only for someone to interrupt, lampshading the ridiculous nature of the quip. He finally manages to play the trope straight on the third attempt.

The final such one-liner in the show goes to Grissom in "Immortality", the show's final episode. Now an independent eco-warrior, he holds up two severed shark fins in front of a bunch of cops wondering why he has broken into a ship and comments "Looks like someone jumped a shark".

A CSI: NY example — on discovering that a corpse that has fallen from the Empire State Building has had its brain go out of the hole in its skull, Stella opines, "Looks like a no-brainer."

Dead man found dressed as a giant cigarette; "Let's just say it now to get it over with, Smoking Kills." This was shamelessly lifted for GrindhousePlanet Terror, though, of course, the delivery style was entirely different.

Lampshaded on the 21 March 2007 episode, when Det. Flack responds to Messer's failed attempt at a Quip To Black by giving it a numerical grade like an Olympic judge.

Body discovered sitting peacefully at a park bench; when Mac's partner tries to figure out what happened and connect the clues they have there, Mac promptly tells her "Not everything's connected", grabbing the corpse's cleanly decapitated head and lifting it off its body.

A forearm and thigh are found in separate locations. In the autopsy lab, Lindsay walks up to the others and says "Let me give you a hand", before presenting Sheldon and Sid with the dead man's hand.

Man found buried in a potting bed with a buzzard picking at him. Mac's response: "I thought that the only vultures that lived in this city worked on Wall Street".

The episode, "Hammer Down", pulled off a two-person Quip To Black:

Stella: Looks like the end of the road for her. Mac: And the start of the line for us. (I'm not sure if I quoted it correctly, but that's the gist of it.)

Before Briscoe joined the cast, it was generally Mike Logan who delivered the one-liner. In the latest seasons it's usually Cyrus Lupo.

Every two-man team on L&O must have at least one Deadpan Snarker. No exceptions. When Lennie Briscoe left, his partner automatically became the designated snarker.

These lines can also be delivered by other characters. An episode opens with two runners, one of whom falls down. The other asks him "Are you okay?", and the fallen runner says "Yeah, but he's not." and the camera cuts to a body.

In the TV movie Exiled, Logan and some of the other cops make quips of this nature about the recent case. Unfortunately for them, the victim's sister happens to overhear them. She's not amused.

A witness in a murder trial was killed before testifying against her ex, and the gunfire killed a bird as well. The detectives and the DA muse about how her ex found her.

Bernard: Maybe a little birdie told him. (Cut to intro)

This was referenced in an episode of Joan of Arcadia in which a police officer makes a quippy comment about a crime scene, followed by a Law & Order-esque musical sting. Her partner gives her a bewildered look, to which she responds, "What? Too Law and Order?"

The opening sequence for Cold Case is set up for this, though it's only occasionally preceded by a quip.

In the episode "Wings", when they find a winged pin that means the victim was a flight attendant.

Lilly: Looks like someone clipped her wings.

Also in "Andy in C Minor" when they find a body in a school for the deaf.

Lilly: ...Killed in a place where no one can hear you scream. Aaaaaauuuuuuuuwwww

And smashed into pieces in "Mr. Monk and the Birthday" when Stottlemeyer does a couple one liners about a body followed by Monk describing how the man would probably have been alive as his body was sliced up and crushed.

An example from the show: Seeing a young woman's dead body. "Baby, Why'd you have to go get yourself killed and ruin both our mornings?"

How I Met Your Mother parodied this in one episode with Ted having been analysing the 'crime scene' of his apartment for evidence of a fight between Lily and Marshall and determining the cause was leaving the lid of the peanut butter, explained with CSI intenseness and use of shades. Though he wasn't even remotely right, as Robin kept trying to correct him and Ted kept ignoring her so that he could do his idiot analysis.

Ted: Lily left the lid off (puts on sunglasses), and Marshall blew his.

The West Wing frequently had someone make a dry comment about whatever impending crisis had just been set in motion before the smach cut to the credits.

Stargate Atlantis, episode Vegas, is set in an alternate reality, where Sheppard never joined the SGC. "Detective John Sheppard" pulls a one liner at the end of The Teaser.

In an episode of Stargate SG-1, a tv producer pitches a number of show ideas, including T'ealc P.I. (a shameless ripoff of Shaft and Magnum, P.I.) featuring a scene where the one liner is simply. "Indeeeeed."

After finding a victim with quarters jammed down his throat:Sam Winchester: Well I say . . . jackpot.

Both of them actually do both this and Glasses Pull about a dozen times, mostly to distract the Trickster.

This trope was referenced and criticized in an episode of Murder, a reality series where two teams of three amateurs try to use forensic techniques to investigate and solve recreations of real life crime scenes. One of the members in one team kept making quips about the crime scene, causing the host (an actual police detective) to berate said contestant saying that real cops are not supposed to joke around during an investigation since doing so is highly unprofessional.

To which the proper response should be "But we're not real policemen, and this" (Puts on glasses) "is a TV show."

Except that part of the shows rules was for them to follow actual police procedure, which includes police professionalism. note No, not "Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" because that's fun, and I want you to stop it.

In Brooklyn Nine-Nine, when Peralta and Santiago are working a case with the best detective in the NYPD, they have a competition of trying to do this in an effort to impress him. Neither are very effective. Though he still tries to ask out Santiago anyways.

Burn Notice skewered CSI: Miami's Caine one liners in the episode Partners in Crime. Sam Axe (played by Bruce Campbell) pretends to be a crime scene investigator in order to put pressure on the murderer of a clothing model. Just before leaving, he pulls on his shades and delivers these gems:

"Looks like murder...is in style this season." "Looks like our killer's plan...is coming apart at the seams." Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Castle plays this for laughs; Richard Castle is frequently given to making some comment of this nature, prompting Beckett to just give him an exasperated look in response, and then the cut.

On the other hand, Castle is delighted to learn how real cops operate, because the ones on TV "seem to be obsessed with their sunglasses".

Subverted in the season two episode "Famous Last Words".

Castle's Mother: Now does that man look like a killer to you? Castle: Everybody looks like a killer to me; it's a job requirement. Castle's Daughter: You didn't say that about [the victim's sister]. Castle: Just... let me have this moment.

Subverted delightfully in "The Squab and the Quail". Beckett is pursued romantically by a brilliant and charming billionaire. The episode ends with Castle showing his rival to the elevator out, having been chosen by Beckett. Castle intends to get the last word in a well-earned Quip To Black, only to be out-jousted by his rival.

Billionaire (gets in the elevator): You know, that's an extraordinary woman you have there. Castle (after a pause, and as the door is closing): I know. Billionaire (just before door shuts): Do you? Cue Castle trying to pry the door back open to get the last word.

Played with on The Wire, in an effort to distinguish itself from traditional cop shows. The pilot opens with McNulty questioning a witness about a dead kid named "Snot Boogie," a knucklehead who always hung around the local craps games and tried to steal the winnings because he "couldn't help himself." So McNulty asks why they kept letting him hang around if they knew he was going to grab the cash, and the kid says "You got to. This is America, man." The somber theme song "Way Down in the Hole" dampens the humor of the moment, but the characters find it hilarious, since McNulty opens the next scene by re-telling the story to Bunk.

Lampshaded into a Running Gag on NCIS when Jimmy constantly makes what would be a Grissom One Liner on another show; not only does it never precede a cut, he inevitably causes everyone present to either roll their eyes with the lameness of it or react in disgust with the complete inappropriateness. Sometimes both.

Abby is in Autopsy to collect a tissue sample from the cadaver du jour.

This was parodied on Community, during their Law & Order episode, "Basic Lupine Urology". After a smashed yam is found in the biology class (the yam being the group's now ruined class project), Troy and Abed are tasked with finding out who killed it. They stand over the yam, having this exchange:

Troy: Looks like it's gonna be a late night. How'd we manage to pull the short straw? Abed: It's not a short straw...it's a hot potato. Troy: Yeah well, looks pretty cold to me. Abed: Cold or dead? Troy: Survey says- Abed: We can't both do the zinger. Troy: Sorry. [Cut to credits]

Buddy: "Iím sure you guys have a natural rapport and timing, and youíre scared that adding a new member might throw everything off of its natural" ó CUT TO TITLE SEQUENCE ó "rhythm."

An episode of Cops LAC opens with the police attempting to break up a protest over what used to be a naturist beach, Nathan trying to get the naturists to leave for one of two other nude beaches up the coast. They're interrupted when Priscilla finds a suitcase washing up on shore, and Daniel opens it up to find a severed human leg inside.

''The Men's Room, a radio show based out of 99.9 KISW in Seattle, features a daily "Shot of the Day", where the hosts will tell a brief story about some notable person with an interesting story that's funny in some way. Typical sources include minor news stories, Cracked, etc. After reading through the story, each of the hosts will usually try to come up with an Incredibly Lame Pun to describe the situation, each capped off with the "Yeeeeeeeeagh!" stinger. Especially lame or just plain unfunny puns will receive a long vocal stinger from Journey.

Stormwind Investigator: Given the body temperature, I'd say they've been dead no more than six hours. Damn shame what they did to Old Blanchy. Lieutenant Horatio Laine: No kidding, rookie. Looks like they really put the cart... before the horse.

And to top it all off, Blizzard gives this NPC a fairly ridiculous looking pair of sunglasses◊.

Just in case you don't get the joke first time, said NPC then goes on to crack several more quips to black in the course of the quest line.

Chuck Greene has a tendency to drop one of these after taking out the more unsympathetic psychopaths.

(While watching a psychopath get his face chewed off by the zombie of a girl he killed when she refuesed to marry him)Chuck: You may now kiss the bride.

For bonus points, he can even get a pair of shades.

The flash game Replaying the Game has one level that is nothing but these based on the deaths of Hamlet characters.

In Dragon Age II's "Mark of the Assassin" DLC, snarky-Hawke pulls off a one-liner so intentionally cringe-worthy it must be a Shout-Out to CSI: Miami. After the villain, an Orlesian duke, falls off a cliff:

Hawke: Looks like the Duke...has fallen from grace.

Complete with a shot of Hawke walking away from the cliff with his/her companions framing him/her on the background. For some reason, it's funnier with the Fenris and Anders formation. The only things missing were the sunglasses and this.

It must be a thing for the Heroes of Thedas to do this, during the Jaws of Hakkon DLC The Inquisitor can sit in judgment, stand in judgment actually, of a bear. Yes...a bear. Accept and s/he can quip, "Very well. I wouldn't want things in the hold to become...unbearable.

Parodied in the first episode of Hector: Badge of Carnage, when a punk, who desperately wants a record, gets tasered by an old lady. Hector says something like "looks like he...puts on sunglasses... just got charged", followed by the start of the CSI: Miami theme, before it's cut off. Hector takes off the sunglasses and apologizes to the player, not sure what came over him.

One of the subcategories on Comixed.com, a yonkoma creation site, is a Quip To Black (usually featuring Horatio Caine but occasionally characters from other series as well) with the last panel being a establishing shot of Miami (or wherever) with YEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH captioned across it.

A meme on the general-interest Tabletop Games website RPGnet has forum posters doing this when somebody gets banned.

It's been nipped in the bud. Or if you prefer... [puts on sunglasses] ... it critically failed.Yeeeeaaaaaahhh!!

The meme has since been unofficially retired since one of the veteran posters pulled it off Hamlet style. VEEEEEERRRRRILYYYYYYYYYY!!

A similar tradition on gray hat hacker boards is to mock permabanned with the circumstances of their banning, generally through a quip or Incredibly Lame Pun.

The Onion's AV Club forums have a commenter who calls him-/herself David Caruso and posts nothing but one-lines, with the Glasses Pull and YYYYYEEEAAAAHHHH copied from CSI.

On the Cheezburger Network site Comixed, this is a popular trend. However, one recent comic averts this.

On the WrestleCrap Radio podcast, Blade Braxton's character C. S. Irwin was a parody of Horatio Caine. Ostensibly the podcast's TNA correspondent, Caine (like all previous correspondents) never actually recapped TNA; instead, he'd do a sort of TNA-related "Shaggy Dog" Story that ended in a lame pun, followed by the signature Who music.

In the "C. S. Pie" episode of Ultra Fast Pony, once Pinkie sees that her cake's been eaten in the opening scene, she says, "I guess that this mystery food thief... takes the cake." For bonus points, the opening was redone in the style of CSI, complete with theme song change. Twilight attempts another one later in the episode, but because it isn't a pun, it fails.

Western Animation

Parodied in American Dad! when someone from animal control attempts this in complete with him putting on shades, jumping up and yelling "Yeeeeeeeeagh!". but it falls flat when his friend doesn't get the reference.

(After Doofenshmirtz finishes a Broadway Style Song and Dance Routine)Dancer: Are we done now? I have to pick my kid up from school. Doofenshmirtz: Just wait till it fades to black. (Jumps to black) Doofenshmirtz: There.

Subverted in Family Guy when Peter mentions they're going to Hollywood, "where the people are sexy and clever and they always say somethin' funny right before the commercial break". He then doesn't say anything until after the break.

Also from Family Guy as the last line from the episode "Stewie Kills Lois":

Stewie: "Well at least it didn't end like The Sopranos where it just cut to black in mid sent—"

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy